EARL’S JUNK SHOP STOOD untouched. They walked through the hushed aisles, every item holding its breath as they passed into the house.

“Dad?” Sonia called. “Dad, did—” She paused, touched her face. “Oh my God.”

They found him sprawled facedown on the floor in front of the sofa, still hooked up to his oxygen mask, the tube having pulled loose from the tank. In the end, death had shrunk him, diminished whatever was left of his presence, flattening every dimension of his body until he looked like a suit of clothes that had simply slipped off the hanger. Somewhere the tank hissed on and on. Sonia fell to her knees beside him, her shoulders trembling in silence as she wept. Witnessing her silent crying, the old things, the curios and bric-a-brac that had gravitated toward Earl Graham throughout his time here, all seemed to release a long, slow communal breath of resignation.

Scott ran up the stairs, three at a time.

“Henry! Henry?”

He checked the bedrooms, the bathrooms, the closets, under the tables, and behind the doors, just in case the boy, frightened, had gone into hiding. He went back through the junk shop and searched under the tables there. He called and called the boy’s name until it was only a meaningless sound.

There was no answer.

Circling back around to the front room, he found Sonia still kneeling on the floor with her father’s hand pressed between both of her own. She lifted her face up to him, chalk white and empty of expression. She had never looked so lost or lonely in her entire life, an ageless sense of abandonment hollowing out her eyes, making her seem very small.

“Is he here?”

Scott shook his head. “Your father …?”

“No,” Sonia said. She spoke very softly, hardly louder than the sound of the oxygen seeping from the tank, but he heard her very well.

“I’ll call an ambulance.”

“No need,” she said. “There’s no hurry. Henry first.” She cleared her throat without much strength. “Do you have any idea what might have happened to him?”

“Yeah,” Scott said. “I do.”